Obama offers preview of budget; analysts say ‘dead on arrival’

President Barack Obama on Tuesday offered a preview of a small part of his 2014 budget, announcing at the White House $100 million towards helping researchers find new ways to cure and prevent brain disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.

But like other items in his budget to be released next Wednesday, it probably won’t get very far, analysts say and Republicans suggest.

“Better late than never, the Obama administration will issue its 2014 budget on April 10, a mere nine weeks late. It will call for higher taxes and more infrastructure spending, and it will be dead on arrival,” wrote Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Potomac Research Group, in a note on Tuesday.

Republicans are keeping up a push for a balanced budget, touting their own plan to eliminate the deficit in 10 years and blasting Obama for not aiming to do so.

But even if the Obama budget can’t pass the Republican-controlled House in its entirety, there are signs that the White House is reaching out to the GOP in hopes of keeping talks aimed at a budget deal alive.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama is strongly considering including limits on entitlement benefits, something it first offered Republicans in December. Obama is scheduled to dine with a group of Senate Republicans on the same day he releases the budget.

Obama will likely offer more previews of his budget plan before next Wednesday. Then the heavy lifting will begin, as Congress and the White House sort through all the plans on the table.

When Obama’s budget does land, look for Republicans to complain about it being late, says longtime Washington budget-watcher Stan Collender.

“Depending on the language you want to use this will either be spin or BS. The truth is that the GOP will be complaining about not being able to consider a budget that it very likely would have declared dead on arrival and not worthy of being considered in the first place,” he wrote recently.